


Selected Readings from the Swallowstone Naturalis Historia

by Mima (MissMima)



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Gen, as in she's theoretically the author, i'll add renko as a tag if i ever write any parts she wrote
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 12:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20425862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMima/pseuds/Mima
Summary: Is what you can see with your eyes necessarily the truth?





	Selected Readings from the Swallowstone Naturalis Historia

**Author's Note:**

> atm this is just another roleplay freeform but my girlfriend insists i leave it open and write more in the future. i might. we'll see.

While I would assume those who have made it this far into this book are by now either wholly convinced of its authenticity, or merely reading on due to some warped sense of irony, I cannot be certain. And because of that uncertainty, I would like to pose a question. 

What is the nature of "certainty"? 

People can be certain of things for many reasons. Some believe only what they see with their eyes. Some only what can be mathematically proven. And some people don't seem to believe in anything at all. Each of these is, in some way, a fallacious way of thinking of reality. 

Is what you can see with your eyes necessarily the truth? Psychologists have for years studied those with what they'd consider "warped perception." Those who hallucinate, or drift away from reality... To them, is it not our world that is strange and alien? And to that end, is the same not true of all people? If the only one you can trust is yourself, and you know that the self is not always right... Can you truly trust it? 

This is, after all, why modern psychologists tend to take things as relativism. What is right for one person may be unthinkable for another. In this regard, of course this book should be taken with a grain of salt- it is merely a record of my reality. 

Those, then, that would choose to refute this reality with their idea that what is "real" can be mathematically and scientifically proven must too be addressed. Indeed, there are some things about the world that humanity as a whole can say that it has proven. But the flaw in this idea is that it, too, relies on the hearsay of other people. 

One human alone cannot hope to "prove" everything in their lifetime, to do enough experiments to replicate the summation of all current human knowledge. Even if they did, they would be seen as wasting their time. It would be ridiculous to ask that we all prove that the Earth is truly round just to believe in it. In this manner, the only way to move forward is to trust the judgment of other people as reality, and build upon that. 

And as the first group would contend- can you truly be certain of anything you can't prove yourself? 

It is in this way that those who do not trust anything begin to rise up. 

But so too is that idea fallacious. It is impossible to truly believe nothing, because believing nothing is real is in itself a belief. It is in this paradox that Zhuangzi's butterfly dream is rooted. 

In the modern world, we are often reticent to look back on what has already been quite well established in ancient philosophy. We could all learn a bit from Taoism. Just for now, I'd like what you take away from this to be the following- 

Your reality is your own. The reality of others may be different. The boundary of these may be imperceptible as much as it may be impassable. But spending your life worrying about the nature of that reality will only lead you backwards. 

Sometimes, you must simply have faith in the way things are to lead you to your truth. 


End file.
